


Rise of the EVIL Interns

by lunaofthemiste



Series: The Booty Shorts Chronicles [3]
Category: Battle for London in the Air (Roleplay)
Genre: Booty Shorts Timeline, Everyone is related, Gen, Immortal Illuminati AU, is it breaking child labor laws if you lie to your boss?, lizard content, no I can't write anything without thinking of the implications, rip the blue jacket
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:33:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29686782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunaofthemiste/pseuds/lunaofthemiste
Summary: Helena and Barry scam their way into an internship and get more than what they bargained for.
Series: The Booty Shorts Chronicles [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2181549
Kudos: 5





	Rise of the EVIL Interns

Years later, Helena would look back and say that it really was EVIL’s fault for not running background checks.

Getting the internship was easier than Helena had anticipated, especially for herself and her brother. They didn’t even have university degrees, and Barry hadn’t even graduated secondary school yet, but it was easy enough to fake transcripts from an online university to fool the recruiters. The recruiters were very strange, focusing primarily on whether Helena and Barry would be confidential and mildly competent rather than anything of “real value” according to Barry. If it were up to him, neither of them would have been hired, but they were young and needed the money. Despite the strange hiring process, the job wasn’t that hard and most of the frustration came from changes higher up that most of the interns seemed to complain about. 

“Remember the formatting!” Dr. Sterling, one of their bosses, added before they left. The formatting of the reports was absolutely ridiculous, especially since it kept changing. At this point, it was 12.5-point, dark grey, and some sort of custom font that looked like Times New Roman but changed the styling of lowercase ‘A’s.

Helena groaned as soon as they left the lab, hopefully out of earshot of Dr. Sterling. “I swear, when I interviewed for this job, I never said that  _ graphic design  _ was my passion. That’s all we seem to do!”

Barry rolled his eyes as he pushed the gurney up the hall. “At least we don’t have to clean up.” It was an unspoken rule among the interns that clean up duty was the worst possible task to have. The doctors would create all sorts of waste, including human remains, which totally grossed Helena asked.

“What are we even doing?” Helena asked, sighing. “I mean, the job pays well, but...they’re dead,” she said, gesturing to the body on the gurney.

“The bodies? Uh, yeah, I sure hope so.”

Helena gave him a look. “They’re  _ experimenting _ on them,” she pointed out.

“So? I mean, people do experiments on these things all the time. They probably just donated their body to science before they died,” Barry shrugged. He was always the more rational of the two, even though he was three years younger. “Besides, it pays well, and they didn’t ask questions.”

“I hate that you’re right, but I don’t have to like what we’re doing,” Helena sighed, opening the door so Barry could push the gurney through again. “At least this body was normal, did Sami show you the shorts that one guy was wearing? Do you have to specify being buried in that?”

“What was it, ‘God Won’t Let Me Die’?” Barry asked, chuckling. “That’s so stupid.”

“And meme-y. He probably saw it on the internet,” Helena smiled to herself as she pulled out her cell phone.

“What are you doing?” Barry hissed. “We’re not supposed to have those down here.”

“I’m not going to take pictures, I’m seeing if she texted back yet,” Helena murmured, focused on the screen, which showed no new messages. “What if I sent her a picture of Larry Jr.?”

Barry sighed. “So  _ I _ get to deal with the body and  _ you _ get to flirt on the internet?”

Helena didn’t look up. “It’s been hours, she should have seen my text.”

“People get busy, Lena,” he said, and she could hear the eye-roll in his voice.

“Maybe she’ll text later,” Helena said eventually, pocketing her phone. “We can just leave the body here, right?”

The door swung open and a woman a few years older than Helena stood in the doorway. She was pale with dark hair that looked almost unnaturally straight, like those edits of Snow White if she were a modern woman. Her clothes were more formal than anyone who worked in the EVIL lab division, which suggested that she did not. She stopped in her tracks and frowned, looking around the room for a second.

“Apologies, wrong room,” she said, turning to leave.

“Which room are you looking for?” Helena asked, walking towards the woman. 

“Um,” the woman checked the notebook in her hand. “Conference Room 3-B. I think I may have taken a wrong turn somewhere.”

Helena nodded understandingly. “Believe me, when I first started here I got lost so much. I think I know where that is, I can show you.”

“Thank you,” the woman smiled. “I’m still getting the hang of things around here,” she extended her hand. “I’m Rebecca, by the way. Rebecca Tyler.”

Helena smiled, shaking Rebecca’s hand. “I’m Lena Spencer, and this is my brother, Bart. We’re interns here,” she explained, using the fake names she and Barry had provided EVIL. Barry waved politely and walked closer as well.

“Nice to meet you both. I’m an analyst, I just started..recently,” Rebecca said, hesitating slightly.

“We started in the beginning of January. They need interns year-round,” Barry said. “What do you do as an analyst? I’m not familiar with that part of the agency.”

“It’s a lot of profiling and probabilities. Part of it is for recruitment, part of it is for whatever project we’re running at the time,” Rebecca explained as they walked down the hallway towards the elevator. “I know it’s not as glamorous as some of the other jobs, but I like it.”

“It’s not glamorous?” Helena asked, noting Rebecca’s very glamorous work ensemble, complete with a slim-cut dress and high heels. “I’m in a lab coat and jeans, you’re like thirty times more glamorous than me.”

Rebecca chuckled. “Thank you, I just wanted to dress to impress since I’m new here,” she said, tapping her notebook absent-mindedly.

“Rebecca?” A voice yelled from down the hallway. Helena squinted and saw a tall man jogging towards them.

“Oscar?” Rebecca yelled back, also squinting. “Sorry, I took a wrong turn!”

As Oscar approached them, Helena could see the young man more clearly. He was significantly taller than all three of them, with clean-cut dark hair, a crisp blue jacket, and a kind smile on his face. “It’s not a problem, I know this place can get confusing,” Oscar said to Rebecca. “Thank you for your help,” he told Helena and Barry.

“This is Lena and Bart, they’re interns,” Rebecca explained.

Oscar nodded. “Nice to meet you both,” he said politely before turning back to Rebecca. “We’re all waiting for you.”

“You didn’t have to wait for me,” Rebecca shook her head, smiling. “Thank you, again,” she said to Barry and Helena, before she turned and left with Oscar.

After a minute or so of uninterrupted silence, Barry turned to Helena. “Was that weird?”

“Maybe,” Helena shrugged. “Weirder things have happened here. There’s the illegal lizard, for starters.”

“Larry Jr. isn’t illegal, he’s contraband,” Barry corrected. “Her name sounded familiar, I can’t place it though.”

“Well, I wouldn’t give it too much thought,” Helena patted her brother on the shoulder, “because then your stupidly big head would explode, and I need your share of the pay to help with rent.”

“This whole thing was  _ your _ idea,” Barry mumbled as they walked back to the break room.

“Sorry?”

“Nothing.”

“Thought so,” Helena smirked, reaching for her phone once again. “She texted!”

* * *

Working in the labs at EVIL was generally uneventful - the interns filled out paperwork, cared for the lizard, and cleaned up whatever experiment Dr. Sterling and Dr. Jhandir were doing that week. There were several betting pools within the interns surrounding the two doctors, mostly because no one could figure out their relationship. Helena had learned from the other interns that Dr. Jhandir had just shown up one day, with one intern swearing he had seen the doctor in a body bag a few days earlier. The current pools were about whether someone would ever find the two doctors in a compromising position, or if one would kill the other. Helena didn’t participate in either, mostly because she didn’t have the spare cash to bet, but also because she wasn’t that invested in her bosses’ lives.

The only interesting part of the job at this point was meeting Rebecca. They had seen her a few times since then and had gotten to know more about her job and life. Helena thought she was different than the others at EVIL, somehow softer, albeit a little forgetful. There was more to Rebecca than she was letting on, especially since Oscar seemed to be super protective of her. She would have asked if Oscar was her boyfriend if she hadn’t seen another man hanging over him the other day.

Luckily, Helena could leave the EVIL issues and questions at the office. It was the weekend, and they both had elected to take off the day from work. The internship money covered most of their bills, but not all of them, so Helena usually took extra shifts at other jobs to help make ends meet. She was also saving money to help Barry with university. While he wasn’t technically old enough yet, she knew he was smart enough to graduate secondary school early and move on. He was more driven than her, so she’d rather work now to help him than worry about herself.

“What are you doing?” Helena asked, leaning over to see Barry’s laptop. They were both sitting on the sofa, with Barry on his old laptop while she was on her phone.

“I’m looking into something,” he said vaguely. 

Helena rolled her eyes. “Well, that’s specific,” she said, leaning back into her spot on the sofa.

Barry sighed, looking up at Helena. “Okay, so you know how I did that ancestry thing a few months back?” he asked.

Helena nodded. “Yeah, and it went nowhere.”

“Okay yeah, but maybe it didn’t,” Barry frowned, turning the laptop around so Helena could see. “This is a bunch of generations back, but look - Rebecca Tyler, in our family tree.”

“Rebecca Tyler is a  _ very _ common name,” Helena pointed out, unimpressed.

“Well the record said she died tragically when she was twenty-four with a butler,” Barry continued, “ _ but _ she has a brother named Nathan.”

“And?”

“Didn’t Rebecca say she had a brother the other day at lunch?”

Helena sighed. “I kind of think you’re grasping at straws here. It’s not uncommon to have a brother.”

Barry frowned. “But don’t you think it’s a little suspicious?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Do you really think Rebecca from work is some lady from the 1900s that just happened to not age? She’s not a cryptid, she’s an analyst.”

“It’s just a theory.”

“Well, you shouldn’t tell her that. It’s weird and creepy,” Helena mumbled as she looked back at her phone. Hopefully, Barry would get the hint and drop this whole thing.

* * *

“Did you know,” Barry said in-between mouthfuls of food, “that we have an ancestor named Rebecca Tyler?”

Helena almost reached out and strangled her brother right then and there. The three of them were sitting in the EVIL Cafeteria late at night. Most of the other workers had gone home, but it was easy to sneak in another meal if no one paid any attention. Helena was surprised that Rebecca hadn’t gone home, but she said she lived on site as some of the staff did, so she didn’t mind keeping them company.

Speaking of Rebecca, she raised a careful eyebrow at Barry’s statement. “Well, I suppose it is a common name.”

“According to the website, she died tragically young with her butler and was survived by her brother Nathan. That’s who we’re related to,” Barry explained. “Actually, if I’m remembering correctly, she was probably around your age when she passed.”

Rebecca’s whole demeanor changed slightly. “I’m sorry, I  _ just _ remembered I needed to run a report,” she said eventually as she stood up. “We’ll catch up more another day.”

“He didn’t mean it,” Helena apologized, but Rebecca shook her head.

“I’ll see you around,” she said decisively before leaving.

Helena and Barry watched her go before Helena lightly punched Barry’s arm. “Really?!”

“What?” Barry asked, frowning. “I thought it was interesting.”

“She probably thought it was weird, and that  _ we’re _ weird,” Helena frowned. “I specifically told you not to tell her.”

“Was her behavior not totally suspicious?” Barry shot back. “Besides, you’re the one always saying that this place is off, I’m looking into it.”

“Well, you’re doing it wrong,” Helena grumbled, turning back to her phone. 

* * *

Helena didn’t see Rebecca very much after that. It seemed the analyst was always busy at just the right times to successfully avoid both Helena and Barry. As much as she claimed it didn’t bother her, it was pretty obvious that it did in some capacity. Helena had just accepted the fact that Rebecca probably wanted nothing to do with either of them when they found her in the main lab about a week later.

“Rebecca, what are you doing here?” Helena asked, and Rebecca turned around, relaxing only when she saw Helena. Her hair, which was usually straight, was now curly, and her clothes seemed less business professional than what she usually wore.

“I wasn’t sure where the interns hung out, I needed to talk to you,” Rebecca said carefully, glancing around.

Helena frowned. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine,” Rebecca dismissed, shaking her head, but it was clear that something was wrong. “We can talk more later.”

Just as Rebecca started to leave, Helena turned and saw Dr. Jhandir walk in. He frowned at the trio, which generally seemed to be his default expression - Helena couldn’t recall a time where he had smiled.

“Miss Tyler, are you lost?” he asked, frowning.

“No, I, uh-” Rebecca started.

“We were just showing her Larry Jr.,” Barry cut in, “the lizard. She won’t tell Kern.”

Dr. Jhandir seemed to accept Barry’s lie begrudgingly. “I would appreciate it if we didn’t bring tourists in to see it, especially if it’s contraband.”

Barry nodded. “Of course, sir,” he apologized.

“ _Doctor_ ,” Dr. Jhandir corrected.

“Doctor,” Barry repeated, nodding as he pushed Helena and Rebecca out of the lab.

“Thank you,” Rebecca said softly as they walked away.

“ _ Sir _ ?” Helena hissed at Barry.

“It slipped out!” Barry winced before addressing Rebecca. “It’s nothing, but you look off. I’m...sorry about the other day.”

“That’s what I needed to talk to you about, actually,” Rebecca admitted.

Helena frowned. “Wait, really?” she asked, confused.

“Um,” Rebecca looked around wildly before her eyes focused on the door behind Helena. “Here,” she said, opening the door and ushering Helena and Barry through.

“What’s going on?” Helena asked as she locked the door to the gender-neutral restroom. “You seem...off,” she added as Rebecca turned on the faucet.

“I know, I know,” Rebecca rubbed her forehead. “If I’m going to be completely honest I’ve been off for weeks, but then Barry did something that just jogged my whole memory.”

“I did?” Barry asked, frowning.

“Nathan,” Rebecca sighed. “You told me about Nathan, and it must have triggered everything coming back. I don’t know entirely what they did to me, but I’m glad I’m...out of it.”

“You’re not making sense,” Helena said carefully. “Nathan Tyler is the guy in our Ancestry tree, but he’s super old, and dead. Why would that matter to you…” she trailed off as she connected the dots.

Barry, of course, was one step ahead of her. “He’s your brother, which makes you  _ the _ Rebecca Tyler that died tragically young with her butler.”

“Bodyguard,” Rebecca corrected. “It was Oscar, actually, but yes, it’s true. I know it’s a lot to take in, but I’m relying on you two to help me.”

“But...that makes you very,  _ very _ old,” Barry frowned.

“Not that we care, we  _ also _ lied about our ages on our applications to work here,” Helena cut in, glaring at Barry. “Seriously, though we need more details.”

“I was recruited to work for an intelligence organization that happens to be run by immortals,” Rebecca said. When she saw the blank stares on Helena and Barry’s faces, she continued. “It’s an oversimplification, obviously, but time is of the essence right now. When I was returning home to London last month, I was kidnapped in the airport and brainwashed to work for EVIL. Telling me about my past snapped me out of it.”

Helena felt a small pit in her stomach. “When you say brainwashed…”

Rebecca bit her lip. “I don’t want to get into it, but I also don’t want either of you any more involved in this place. Honestly, the name makes it obvious, but this place is-”

“Evil?”

“Unfortunately,” Rebecca nodded, extending her hand. “I need your phone.”

“Why?” Helena asked as she handed Rebecca her phone.

“I’m giving you a phone number,” she said as she typed. “When you’re out of here, when you’re somewhere safe, you call it. If this backfires EVIL might come for you, especially if they figure out the family connection, but he’ll protect you.”

“He? We need more details than a pronoun,” Barry cut in.

“He’s my...his  _ real _ name is Tristan Curtis. He works for the other organization, he’ll protect you if you need it. You need to call him and tell him the truth, all of it,” Rebecca explained. “Tell him I’m here and I’m alive and...and that I need his help, desperately.”

“What if he doesn’t believe us?” Helena asked.

“Then find a way to meet up and give him this,” she unclasped a hidden necklace from around her neck. “He knows it’s mine, and he’ll try to find a way to fix this.”

Helena took the necklace and carefully pocketed it. “Why can’t you just leave?” 

Rebecca moved her hair aside, showing off a small scar behind her ear. “They’ll track me down. It’s too risky to try and take the tracker out on my own, I need backup to help fix this mess.” She moved her hair back, finishing what she was typing and handing the phone back to Helena. “I wrote down some names of other agents that might have been brainwashed as well.”

Helena scanned the list, moving the phone so Barry could see as well.

“Jhandir?” He asked, looking up in confusion. “Oscar too?”

“He was reported dead last year. It was a huge deal,” Rebecca said quietly. “Oscar died in 2017, I didn’t know they could bring people back like this until I saw him. Can I count on you? I...I don’t know what else I can do.”

“But what about you?” Helena frowned. “If they come after us, they’ll come after you.”

“They won’t kill me.”

“They might do worse.”

Rebecca nodded grimly. “I know. I don’t like it either, but it’s the right play. Tristan and the rest of the agency need to know what happened.”

Helena nodded slowly back, glancing at Barry, who was nodding as well. “We’re going to help you fix this. I knew something wasn’t right here, I just didn’t know what.”

“I found out some of it, but we  _ were _ getting paid triple the minimum wage,” Barry added. “Also, Lena,  _ don’t be mad _ but I grabbed some stuff earlier.”

Helena searched Barry’s face for an answer. “ _ What stuff _ ?!”

“Just some forms and stuff,” he said vaguely.

“Holy shit, you’re going to get us killed,” Helena groaned. “We’ll talk about this later,” she said, grabbing the doorknob.

“I’ll stall best I can if they come after you, but there’s only so much I can do,” Rebecca said, moving so she was next to the door. “Good luck, both of you. I hope I see you again someday.”

“I hope so too,” Helena smiled, surprised that she actually meant that. Once she opened the door, the siblings and Rebecca parted ways. 

As they made their way to the entrance, Helena noticed that no one seemed suspicious or was looking for them. It seemed like they were in the clear for now, and once they entered Helena’s car, she let out a sigh of relief.

“Oh, and one more thing,” Barry said awkwardly, pointing to the backseat.

Helena turned and almost had a heart attack. Larry Jr. was sitting there, minding his own business. “You stole the lizard!” she snapped at Barry.

“He doesn’t belong in a lab! I had the other interns help me bring him here, I played it off as a prank. I also grabbed some vials.”

If they weren’t in a life-or-death scenario, Helena might have killed her brother. “Some vials?”

“We can take it to this Tristan guy, and maybe he’ll know what to do.”

“Why did you steal stuff in the first place?” Helena sighed. “It’s not like you.”

Barry sighed as well. “I thought I was going to be a whistleblower, and we could get money out of a lawsuit. They’re already breaking child labor laws.”

“I mean, I guess? We’re whistleblowers, just not to the police,” Helena nodded as she started to drive away from the EVIL facility for hopefully the last time with Barry and Larry Jr. in tow. 

“Well, whatever it is we are, we’ll get to the bottom of it,” Barry decided.

“Of course we will,” Helena grinned. “I’ve got nothing else going on.”

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline story notes!!  
> \- Rebecca is kidnapped from the airport like in Transfers, but can't escape. (It's outlined somewhere)  
> \- Once she figures stuff out, EVIL brings her back to their base.  
> \- Tristan has probably gone rogue at this point, oops.  
> \- Helena and Barry are siblings that are descendants of the Tylers. They also might be descendants of the Curtis family as well (on Tristan's dad's side)
> 
> Fun story notes!!  
> \- Dr. J and Barry are canonically the same height!  
> \- The first lizard from Brains was eventually recovered, so the interns stole a second lizard, hence Larry Jr..  
> \- EVIL!Rebecca dresses like Lena Luthor.  
> \- No one will ever tell EVIL Assassin Dave Heaton that he's showing too much PDA to his boyfriend in the office.


End file.
